Cayman Salvage Master
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The Cayman Salvage Master (also known as Cayman Salvager or Cayman Salvor ) is a shipwreck off Key West in the Gulf of Mexico . The ship, built in 1937 and sunk in 1985, fulfilled various functions during its use. Today it serves as an artificial coral reef and is a diving attraction off the coast of the Florida Keys .
history
The ship with a steel hull (measurement: 840 GRT) was built by the Pusey & Jones Corporation in Wilmington in Delaware ( hull number 435/1067). It was the only model in its class and the first ship of its kind to be equipped with diesel-electric propulsion . The ship was in 1937 as a mine-layer (= USAMP US Army Mine Planter) under the name of Lt Col Ellery W. Niles put into service. It is possible that an alternative use as a cable lay was already taken into account when the ship was planned . The ship's name was later shortened to Ellery W. Niles ; On a photo from 1941 it bears the inscription on the bow: "US Army Ellery W. Niles". In the Second World War , the Ellery W. Niles was used in the United States Army Transportation Corps and the 4th Coast Artillery, first on the east coast , later on the west coast with the home port of Fort Mason .
After the war, the Ellery W. Niles was handed over to the United States Army Signal Corps and converted into a cable layer. For this purpose, a cable drum was mounted on deck and a cargo space for cables was set up in the hull . The Ellery W. Niles was stationed at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island , from where it was used on the east coast from Portland to Savannah to lay cables between coastal military bases that would have maintained communications in the event of a radio failure. At times, the ship was also used to pick up cabling remnants from electrically triggered sea mines that were laid during the World War . The United States Coast Guard later used the ship as a buoy laying device , as the cable laying devices also made it possible to set buoys and light barrels .
In January 1965, the ship was sold to the Miami- based company "Marine Acoustical Services, Inc.". After expanding the cable storage space and installing a new cable machine, the company was renamed FV Hunt . The ship now laid underwater cables again on behalf of the United States Navy . Marine Acoustical Services sold the FV Hunt to Terrence Allan Thompson in the Cayman Islands in 1978 , where it was renamed the Cayman Salvage Master and converted into a salvage tug .
Later the Cayman Salvage Master sailed under the Panamanian flag as a cargo ship. It was last used during the Mariel boat crisis . On one of the illegal voyages in the summer of 1980, during which they were supposed to bring around 1,400 Cuban refugees to the United States, the ship was picked up by the US Coast Guard and confiscated; armed FBI and CIA agents are said to have been present at the action . It was towed to Key West , where it later sank at the Navy Harbor pier. In August 1985 the Cayman Salvage Master was made buoyant again in order to finally sink it as an artificial reef in the Atlantic. For this purpose, the deck superstructures and equipment were largely removed. On the way to the planned, 300- foot- deep sinking site, the tow broke; the ship sank to a depth of 90 feet at the present location. At first it was on the port side ; due to the water movement caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it straightened up and is now lying on the keel .
Reef and diving attraction
The wreck of the Cayman Salvage Master is about 10 kilometers south of Key West on the southern edge of the Hawk Channel (position 24 ° 27 ′ 39 ″ N , 81 ° 46 ′ 1 ″ W ) at a water depth of about 27 meters. It is 56 meters long, eleven meters wide and eight meters high. The wreck can be dived inside. Since it is not very deep, stands upright and is well preserved, it is one of the most popular diving destinations in Key West. Due to the sometimes strong and unpredictable underwater currents caused by the Gulf Stream , the wreck is not suitable for diving by inexperienced divers. The visibility is around 15 meters.
The ship is already populated by corals. A cable reel located on the upper edge of the bow and the rudder under the stern are worth seeing . The origin of three bicycles chained on the deck is unknown, it is believed that they belonged to Cuban refugees. Moray eels and groupers (including the Goliath Grouper) live in the hull of the ship, while outside there are cornfish , barracudas , snooks , jacks and the Atlantic nurse shark .
Web links (photos)
- Front photo of the Ellery W. Niles during the war: 4th Coast Artillery mine planter, WWII ; National Park Services, US Department of the Interior (in English)
- Side view after conversion to a cable layer; the subsequently installed cable reel on the front part of the deck can be seen: Bill Glower, CS Ellery W. Niles , at: Bill Burns, History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network , Atlantic- Cable.com
- The Cayman Salvage Master , dive video on YouTube , 2011
Footnotes
- ↑ Tom Stack and Therisa Stack, Florida Keys Impressions , ISBN 978-1-56037-2-905 , Farcountry Press, 2004, p. 5 (in English)
- ^ A b Don Philpott, Florida: The Keys. Landmark Visitors Guide Florida Keys , ISBN 978-1-84306-2-103 , Hunter Publishing, Inc, 2006, p. 73 (in English)
- ↑ a b Bill Glower, CS Ellery W. Niles , at: Bill Burns, History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network , Atlantic-Cable.com (in English)
- ^ Pusey & Jones, Wilmington DE , Shipbuildinghistory.com (in English).
- ↑ a b c David Plowman, Isthmian Collectors Club Journal 2009 , ISBN 978-0-55737-8-807 , Lulu.com, 2010, p. 45ff (in English)
- ↑ Sport Diver magazine , Volume 10, Issue 8, September / October 2002, p. 60 (in English)
- ↑ Susan L. Glen, Fort Stevens: Images of America , ISBN 978-0-73855-9-339 , Arcadia Publishing, 2008, p. 39 (in English)
- ↑ Ben Steelman, Bookmarks - Army life on ship rocked by change , August 13, 2011, Star News Online , (in English)
- ↑ Appendix 2: List of US Army Mine Planters (in English)
- ↑ Marine News, Volumes 32–33, World Ship Society, 1978, p. 188 (in English)
- ↑ Bill Glower, CS Ellery W. Niles , in: Bill Burns, History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network , Atlantic-Cable.com (in English)
- ↑ a b Cayman Salvage Master is one of Key West's most popular artificial reefs for divers visiting the Florida Keys ( Memento of the original from January 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , n-the-florida-keys.com (in English)
- Jump up ↑ Key West , Feb. 1999, Islands Magazine , Santa Barbara.
